Mr. Speaker, I am sad to see that the Conservatives are refusing to stand and defend their position on this bill. We are supposed to have a democratic debate in the House of Commons. The Conservatives have put something together that, at the very least, one can say is dangerously reckless and yet they are refusing to defend their actions. They are absolutely refusing to stand and say why they want to be dangerously reckless. It may be to increase CEO's bonuses, who knows, but they could at least give some reason for their recklessness, their irresponsibility and their complete disregard for the families of ordinary Canadians who will be getting on flights soon of airlines that will no longer be regulated or, if they are regulated and there are internal problems, we will never know about them.
I want to come back to the presentation by the member from Skeena—Bulkley Valley who is certainly one of the most active MPs in the House. He works extremely diligently on behalf of his constituency here in Ottawa and then he goes back to Skeena—Bulkley Valley and flies regularly throughout that vast riding, about a quarter of British Columbia. The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley is extremely diligent about getting out to his riding so he flies a great deal, not just to Ottawa but around his riding on the weekends when he goes back to it.
We have a comment from Ken Rubin, who is a public interest researcher, who said the following before the transport committee:
[The] Transport Minister...cannot claim that he and his officials, as they said in front of the committee, are simply adding, via an industry-government confidential non-punitive SMS reporting system, just another protective layer to improve air safety and are implementing a system far removed from airline self-regulation. Rather, they are attempting to circumvent public scrutiny and abdicating their public regulatory--